Male Victims of Violence

Male victims of violence and/or abuse - like women - often face many barriers to disclosing their abuse:

They are likely to be told there must be something they did to provoke the perpetrator’s abuse.

They may suffer shame, embarrassment and the social stigma of not being able to protect themselves.

They may fear if they disclose the abuse there will be nowhere for them and their children to escape

In cases of intimate partner violence, they may fear if they disclose the abuse or end the relationship, their partner might become more abusive and/or take the children.

They may feel uncertain about where to seek help or how to seek help.

Services are less likely to ask whether a man is a victim of family violence and when they do ask they are less likely to believe him. Many health departments have mandatory domestic violence screening for young women, but no such screening for young men.

Male victims may be falsely arrested and removed from their homes because of the assumption they must be a perpetrator and not a victim. When this happens, children can be left unprotected from the perpetrator of the violence, leading many men to suffer the abuse in silence in an attempt to protect their children.